Love Song for the Dagger Mamba

Nailed my roll after running Nantahala Falls at 1780 cfs, a little over a year after I started whitewater kayaking (March 2019).

As I write this, I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my Promaster, rolling down I-75 south, my lime green kayak strapped to the roof rack. This is the kayak that introduced me to whitewater. I knew next to nothing about the sport when I fell head over heels for a man who told me he had just started getting into whitewater kayaking a few months earlier. He asked if I thought I might be interested in giving it a try.

I had been wanting to get into outdoor adventure sports for years. I honestly thought it was going to be rock climbing. I had tons of friends in college who climbed, and who invited me to join them. I remember feeling totally overwhelmed. The cost of a cheap pair of climbing shoes was $80. I had never spent more than $30 on a pair of shoes in my life at that time. I made just barely above minimum wage and was trying to pay rent and utilities on a sub-par apartment with a part-time barista’s income. $80 for shoes? Day-old bread for $0.50 from Jimmy John’s and pasta were a large share of my diet at the time. Climbing shoes were never going to happen. 

But now, years later, here was a hot guy asking me if whitewater kayaking sounded fun. And the script had flipped. I had graduated from college five years previous, and after struggling for a number of years, I finally had every millennial’s dream: a stable, full-time job with a salary and benefits. I finally had the chance to say what my heart had wanted all along: Hell Yes.

I had done plenty of recreational (flat water) kayaking in high school. I had even had a job where I rented out kayaks and inflatable tubes to visitors to float down the creek at a park in my home county, in rural Kentucky. I enjoyed it so much I bought my own kayak at the time. Unfortunately I had very little opportunity to use it after moving away to college, and it sat in my parent’s basement unused for years before I finally asked them to help me sell it in their yard sale. 

But I had grown up around water my whole life. My grandparents lived on a lake with a dock, and my brother and I would get dropped off there all the time as kids, spending the weekend swimming and fishing and exploring, and occasionally even water skiing. “She takes to the water like a fish” I remember my parents saying. So whitewater? Absolutely. Let’s go.

While my new boyfriend Michael was overseas for work, he kept tentatively bringing it up, like he didn’t quite believe he’d had the good fortune of meeting a woman that would be willing to dive into this new passion of his. Like he thought it was maybe just something I had said because I wanted to impress him. (I certainly did want to impress him, he was sexy, and smart, and funny...but I digress. That’s not the reason I wanted to give whitewater paddling a shot.) 

Michael told me that the local whitewater club (who knew there was such a thing?) had “roll sessions”, where they could teach me how to flip a kayak over in the water. He encouraged me to go to one of these while he was gone, but, as an introvert, going to an event where I wouldn’t know anyone and didn’t know what to expect was a little too much. My social anxiety outweighed my stoke. I would wait until he got back so we could go together.

Nevertheless, I started looking at kayaks. Michael told me he thought a Dagger Mamba was supposed to be a great boat for beginners, and he sent me a link for a used one for sale in North Carolina. The guy was selling it along with the float bags, the skirt, and the paddle - for $600. “That’s a great deal!” Michael told me. I believed him. The recreational kayak I had owned in high school had been $400, and it didn’t come with all this additional stuff. And since I had a “real” job now after years of pinching pennies, my savings account was looking (comparatively) fat and happy. Worst comes to worst, I thought to myself, if I totally hate whitewater paddling, I can turn around and sell it all for the same price. 

Without ever having been in a whitewater kayak before, I drove 13 hours round trip in a single day from Kentucky to North Carolina and back. I met a guy on the side of the road who helped me load this bright green boat into my car. “Yeah, I thought I’d like whitewater kayaking,” I remember him telling me. “Turns out it’s not for me. I’m just going to stick with mountain biking.”

That bright green little boat was the key to a whole new world for me, the start of a new life. After years of being in a relationship that didn’t suit me and having a lifestyle that was far too sedentary, things were changing for the better. I had the tools I needed to get out and have adventures of a whole new variety. The floodgates had opened, so to speak.

I learned how to roll in the Mamba. I bounced over my first baby class II rapids in that kayak. I swam out of that Mamba when I got scared. I portaged my first rapids with that boat on my shoulder. I later paddled my first class III and class IV rapids in it. I mastered my offside roll in that Mamba. I made friends paddling in that cockpit, learned how to read water, and explored rivers and creeks all over the southeast.

And yet, here I am, now on small highway rolling through rural Kentucky on my way south, just over two years after I bought that bright green kayak, and this will be the last time it rests on my roof rack. I’m selling it, serendipitously, in the same town in North Carolina that I bought it from. 

People outside of the world of adventure sports are often amazed that folks will often own multiple different whitewater kayaks (or bicycles, etc). But this type of gear is a lot more like having a pair of shoes than having a car. If you have a car, you can do what most people need to do: get from point A to point B, carry a few passengers or carry things from time to time, regardless of the shape or size of the vehicle. With kayaks (or bicycles), each one serves a different purpose. Just like you would put on a pair of running shoes to go running, put on a pair of flats for your office job, wear boots for winter snow, cute sandals for a summer stroll, or put on a pair of heels for a formal gala, each pair of shoes meets a different need. And yes, there are people who just have one pair of sneakers that they wear for everything, and they make it work. But for the most part, it’s a lot nicer to have shoes that match your activity. Boats and bikes are like shoes.  

In that regard, the Dagger Mamba was my pair of sneakers for my first year and a half of whitewater. I used it for everything, and it was incredible. I loved my sneakers, and they allowed me to go to amazing places and learn tons of skills. My Mamba kept me safe and protected and allowed me to advance quickly. But as I improved, I started eyeing all the cool stuff my friends were doing on the water. They surfed waves with ease, they could paddle faster, carve better, and do things that I yearned to do. But my Dagger Mamba wasn’t built for that. My Mamba was built for getting me from point A to point B, stable, upright, and in one piece. It was quite literally the perfect boat for a beginner. 

I’m not a beginner anymore. I haven’t been for a while now. But as I drive toward the hand-off point where my Mamba will be passed to its next owner, I can’t help but wax nostalgic for this incredible boat. The Mamba set me up for success, and I flourished with it. I find myself wondering if this little vessel will herald yet another outsider into the sport and change their life as thoroughly as it has changed mine. I can only hope so.